


One Little Thing

by taizi



Category: One Piece
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Nakamaship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 11:45:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3380309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luffy gets hurt in the kitchen, and his friends overreact because they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Little Thing

_"Luffy!"_

Robin makes a soft, distressed noise, all but tossing her paperback book aside and hurrying around the table; but Sanji beats her there by a mile.

Half-cooked chicken is scattered across the floor, oil puddling out from under the upturned pan, and it's easily a few thousand Bellies wasted, but Sanji only has eyes for the ugly red patchwork on Luffy's arm. The boy isn't crying,  _thank god,_ but he's cringing, hand hovering over the burns like he wants to put pressure on the pain the way he's always done with wounds that bleed; Sanji grabs his wrist.

Robin runs a gentle hand through Luffy's hair, doesn't look away from his face when she murmurs, "Should I get Chopper?"

"If you would. Tell him to bring burn ointment if he has any, I'll get Luffy sorted." Surface burns went hand in hand with a childhood spent almost entirely in and out of a professional kitchen, and Sanji knows what he's doing as Robin leaves. He draws Luffy up in the circle of his arms. "Idiot captain," he says gently. "You can fight through a thousand swords and arrows, does a little burn like this hurt so bad?"

He knows it does, knows it hurts like hell, and Luffy nods almost immediately. "It hurts."

And at that, Sanji's powerless to do anything but make it feel better. He leads Luffy to the sink, runs cool water over his arm, and says, "I told you you could help if you were careful, Luffy. I didn't say that just to be no fun."

Luffy pouts at him, but he nods, and Sanji rotates his arm a little to one side.

When the kitchen door flies open, they're sitting at the table with a wet cloth, and Robin wastes no time in gracefully procuring the seat at Luffy's free side. Chopper climbs right up on the table wailing, "Luffy, are you okay? Robin says you got hurt!"

"I'm okay!"

It should be silly. He's been through so much, his body has survived  _impossible_ hurts, something like a first degree burn is absolutely  _nothing_ in face of all that, it should be  _silly_ , it shouldn't  _matter._

But it does.

Chopper's fumbling with a jar in his eagerness to get it open, babbling about the two years he was gone and all the things he'd learned, and Sanji has to catch it when it slips out of the doctor's little hooves, saving it before it can bounce off the edge of the table and meet an unfortunate end all over the floor.

Luffy's arm is promptly lathered in the cool cream, and Chopper promises that in a few minutes the burn will be gone. But he hovers, and pats Luffy's hand, and Robin retrieves her book with an extra arm and asks Luffy if he'd like to hear the chapter about the treasure hunt, and Sanji lights a cigarette and thinks how silly it should be, all the fuss over a burn.

And maybe it is, but who cares?

It's such a little thing, but they got to  _help._

Their captain is a child, for all that he's a pirate and a criminal, and he has been poisoned, stabbed, shot, impaled, nearly beheaded, nearly drowned, nearly blown up-

And this one time, this  _one time,_ they can reach out and touch, and soothe, and make it feel better. They can coddle him, because there's no danger, there's no battle, they're not at war; the sea and sky are both the same cloudless blue, somewhere close by their musician has struck up a familiar song on an old violin, the ship and its rigging heave and groan, all around them is safety and family and home.

They can cup Luffy's face with gentle fingers and spoil him with affection so he doesn't feel the pain (the way they should have done when he was so alone, without his crew and _grieving_ ) and nothing is lost for it.

Sanji takes a drag of tobacco, reaches over to card his fingers through Luffy's hair, the boy's head tipped over onto Robin's shoulder as she reads. Chopper's in Luffy's lap, there's a lovely smile on Robin's face, and even though food is going to waste in Sanji's kitchen, he doesn't leave Luffy's side.


End file.
